String Theory
by Grav
Summary: The problem with inception is that an idea is like a virus, even when it's an idea that someone else gives you.  Ariadne/Arthur, post movie


**AN**: Um, so this happened.

**Rating**: M

**Disclaimer**: Inception does not belong to me and I do not make a profit from this. But that doesn't stop me from loving it.

**Pairing**: Ariadne/Arthur

**Summary**: The problem with inception is that an idea is like a virus, even when it's an idea that someone else gives you.

* * *

**String Theory**

_Spooling Out the Line_

The problem with inception is that an idea is like a virus, even when it's an idea that someone else gives you. Rumours spread, whispering out across the world, like shadows in a dream, and no one would pay them any attention, except they all deal in the unreal every day, so they all know it's solid. Ariadne goes back to school, but her apartment is leased under a pseudonym of Arthur's choosing, and she carries a panic button in addition to the extra cellphone he made her buy, the small one that she can sew into pockets, the one that only he and Eames know the number for, the one with constant GPS tracking. A point man is an easy thing to get, and forging isn't always key to a job, but a good architect is hard to find, and his constant ability to find her is the price Arthur demands for her returning to her old life.

Except she didn't really go back. She pretends she's gone back, goes to all the lectures and hands in all the assignments, gets all those near-perfect grades, and only Miles knows that when she daydreams it's a lot more real than when one of her classmates zone out. She writes her dissertation, sometimes when asked she can even remember all the words in the title, but it's a front, a cover, to hide the fact that Saito's money pays for everything she could ever want, and when she graduates, she's all but guaranteed a job with him if she wants it.

She's not sure she does. She knows she's hardly the type for a life of crime, false names and playing pretend when the stakes are so high vertigo wars with altitude sickness, and the kick comes hard like a punch to the kidney, but at the same time, now that she's had a taste of it, she's pretty sure she could handle it for a while. It's the after part that nags at her, sleeping and waking, what do you do after you've done the most amazing thing anyone's ever thought of? She's too far in to get out now, even if she follows her tracks back to the edge of the maze. There's nowhere to go but in, and she can't say she's sorry.

She graduates, not the top of her class but near enough to it that she catches the eye of more than a few headhunters. She doesn't return their calls or emails, her dreams are somewhere else, but she takes a few quiet moments to herself while she adds the letters 'PhD' to her CV before she lets Eames sweep her out for a night on the town that she is more or less sure she won't remember. She can never recall at what point during the evening Arthur appears, but her one solid memory of the entire time is his mouth on hers, her hands against his chest, and how straddling his lap seems like the sanest thing in the world.

Once she recovers from the hangover, she calls him on the phone she's only supposed to use for emergencies and tells him that she's ready for the big leagues now. He hedges, as she predicted, but she refuses to take no for an answer, and before long she's building impossible cities once again.

_Following the Lead_

"Fuck, Ariadne!" Arthur is cursing almost before he's awake, pulling the line out of his arm like it's poison and he can't get away from it fast enough.

"What was I supposed to do?" she yells back at him, rising to meet his rage and matching it with her own.

"You were supposed to be awake," Eames says, the picture of calm, from her other side.

"And where would you all be now if I had?" Ariadne says. "I thought you might like to know that our timeline had shifted that dramatically rather than be surprised to wake up and find the building on fire."

"We did, darling." Eames only calls her that to piss Arthur off, and it's clearly working because he stalks away, pulling his sleeve down so sharply that the starched cuff scrapes against his skin loud enough for Ariadne to hear. "Pack up the PASIV, please, before the mob arrives with its torches and pitchforks."

Ariadne shoots him a scathing glare because she's already packing, and because she can't yell at Arthur any more than she already has. At least not in public. They've done this before, after all, more than once, and while it never seems to get any easier for him to see her like this, by the time they're in bed he'll have channeled his feelings into entirely different directions.

She'd gone into the dream late, but it hadn't taken her very long to find them. All she had to do was follow the streams of rioting projections. They didn't even notice her as she pushed through to the front of the crowd, desperate to pass along the information she'd been tipped off about. She'd had a handgun tucked into the back of her pants, hidden by the coat she was wearing against the cold. It was Arthur's dream, and it was Christmas in New York, and she had pulled out the stops for him, like always.

The gun was small, one she designed herself to carry when she's dreaming. Nothing like it existed in the real world, because it breaks nearly every law of physics she understood well enough to circumvent. The gun didn't miss, not ever, in the dreamworld, and it only ever has three bullets. She designed it for Arthur, originally, but there was nothing to stop her from using it if she had to.

Arthur is angry because she broke the rules. She came into the dream and worse, she shot him first. He hates watching her die, but he hates leaving her behind even more.

Eames drives when they leave, and Arthur sits in the front seat with enough weapons to take Panama close by. He looks back, out the window, where their pursuers will be if they haven't been quick enough, but the hand that isn't bracing a gun is wrapped around hers so tightly her fingers throb. It's how he knows it's real.

_Catching the Ship to Athens_

It's her job to lay out the lines that will bring them all back, her job to make sure they find their way out of the mazes she's built for them, and she'll be damned if they leave her behind.

"There will always be bad jobs," she says, words squeezed out of her with barely enough air to give them voice while he holds her against the door of the hotel room. "And we're better off together."

He doesn't deny it, he never denies it, but he won't accept it either. Here in the room, where it's safe, he sets his totem down next to hers, not touching, never touching, and she's out of her jacket and shirt before she can do more than pull on his tie and just breathe. Her legs are already starting to buckle as adrenaline and lust collide somewhere just below her stomach, and he spins so that when they fall, they land on the bed.

From there it's a flurry of buttons and knots and the zipper on her jeans, and if she wasn't so occupied, she'd make a joke about how chronically overdressed he is. By the time she's reaching down to push his trousers out of the way, they've both kicked off their shoes, and then there's nothing but sheets and skin and need.

"You're too good." His mouth latches on to her breast and she moans, but she still has just enough coherency left to understand what he means.

"There's nothing you can do about that." She's always been the kind that fights dirty, and her hands are on his cock before she's even finished talking.

He's picked a poor battlefield, whether he's realized it yet or not, because the only way to shut her up will involve shutting himself up as well. His mouth trails up her neck to hers, and she counts it as a victory when his tongue sweeps hers out of the way and pushes in. His hands are between her legs, pushing, testing, and she willingly leaves coherency behind. One hand withdraws, and she hears the tearing of a foil wrapper, and then he's pressing down against her again, his full weight brought to bear against her smaller frame.

She gives way, her legs spread wide, and he sinks inside her, going still for a moment until she can't bear it anymore and pleads for him to move. He does, and she matches him until his hand slides between them again and his fingers goad her into movements so erratic that she feels like she might break apart at any moment.

"I've got you," he whispers, and she lets go, and he follows her, because she's the one that holds the string.

"I've got you," she whispers, and she knows she'll lead him out again.

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**finis**

Gravity_Not_Included, December 18, 2010


End file.
